Suggestions for expediting justice without the stigma of justice hurried is justice buried 4!

26 MAR 2015

   Suggetion 10:

There is a period specified for appealing against a judgment to the higher courts. If an appeal to the higher court is not filed within the stipulated time, there is a provision for condonment of this delay in appealing in certain deserving cases. First of all this provision implies that the justice delivery system is not particular about and has scant regard for the time taken for the delivery of justice. What on earth can delay just the filing of an appeal against a judgment in today’s world, where any additional information required can be obtained in a flippy?

This provision for appeal for condonment of delay is being increasingly used, rather misused, to delay the process of timely delivery of justice, particularly by not the aggrieved party but the party trying to get benefit or wreak a vengeance on the aggrieved party. The Supreme court has set a precedent recently by disallowing the condonment of delay even in cases where the Government departments had appealed for condonment of delay on their part, which cited the number of departments through which they have to go through the same.

There is one more associated problem with this: Condoning the delay is a soft option for all courts and judges and so most of the delays in appealing later than the due date, provide a path of least resistance for all courts and judges and the delay gets condoned. If there is any judge who can decide whether or not there is justifiable reason to condone the delay it is the judge of the court that passed the first judgment. Again the judge in the appellate court that hears the appeal for condonment of delay, thinks that his judgment does not really matter as much as it can be appealed against in the higher courts. So they condone the delay without spending time on such cases and close a case and score a point in the number of completed cases to their credit!

What is more, the judgment in the condonment of delay cases, like all others, can also be appealed to the higher courts. This adds to the number and duration of processing of each case for which one party files an appeal for condonment of delay, even in cases where the latter has no justifiable reason for delay The genuinely aggrieved party has no option, when the delay is condoned, except to appeal to the higher court for this case of delay in appeal also. This additional waiting time is completely avoidable by providing for appeal against the judgment in condonment of delay to only one court and not right up to the Supreme court as it is prevalent now.

As it stands today one can take the appeal against the judgment of condonment of delay cases, in steps to the highest court in the country namely the Supreme Court. When you take it up to Supreme court, the Supreme court permits the two advocates to argue in its first hearing, but at its discretion only. So there may not be any argument by either party even in the first hearing. But if the genuinely aggrieved party feels that it has not got justice and files a review petition in the Supreme Court, there is a provision that the Supreme Court should not call the two advocates but give a judgment without any hearing, just by reading the files of the case! This is strange as the review petition by the Supreme court is more critical than the first hearing by the Supreme Court.

If the Supreme court, in its review petition condones the delay in appealing against the judgment by the lower court, the case goes back to the lower court that delivered the firat judgment and the cycle starts all over again, as though it is the first hearing of the case – after 25 years of hearing!

One affected indian Bakra/bakri in the service of the people of India.